The landing/hours ratio

Much attention has been given recently to the quality of the hours we fly, especially in the beginning of our flight career. With the 1500 hours rule in place, it is of obvious importance what is being made of them to not turn the fifteen hundred in only a number, and the discussion is still open – although the rule seems to keep quite a solid ground among legislators.

And when quality approaches quantity, a logical thing to look at is how many hours are being flown in relation to how many landings are being made, after all, we learn mostly by repetition, and although repeating a time amount has limited value, repeating a procedure has definitely more impact. That is one of the reasons why we take recency so seriously, because it means a reasonable amount of repetition within a specific time frame that, in return, denotes proficiency. It is all very vague, after all, but we needed some arbitrary numbers to work with and most of them have been stablished for decades with good results.????

Long gone are the days, in my career, of half a dozen landings in an hour of flight, like on my Private in Florida. Over a decade into this industry, I had the chance to fly short, medium, long and ultra long-haul flights, in three different Boeing types, all over the World, and some curious results came out of it. It all started at the very beginning of my airline career, during the initial line training in the Boeing 737. Because we were based in Rio de Janeiro instead of S?o Paulo – at that time I was flying for a leading low cost in South America – most of our flights were to the Northeastern coast of Brazil or to major cities in Argentina: for that reason, as new joining First Officers, we were not landing as much as our training department would like. They came to the conclusion that we had one landing for every six hours of flight, in average, while the pilots based in S?o Paulo were getting almost three times that. Some effort was done and the average fell a good bit, but still took us longer to get our final line check flight than it did for our CGH/GRU based counterparts. Nevertheless, along the years, I was moved to the Rio-S?o Paulo shuttle service, and since we are talking about a 35 to 40 minute ride that happens over a hundred times per day, the average improved quite sharply. However, three years later – and that was one of the reasons – I decide to leave for a company where I would finally fly long-haul. I will come back to the 737 numbers later.

Once in the Middle East, flying the Boeing 787, the best office I could think of, the long-haul was the way to go. Funny enough, though, the company did not use the Dreamliner up to what was designed for: in fact, covering Europe, Asia and Africa only, most of our routes were on the 6 to 8 hours range, and I have never seen one of our seven eights with more than half a tank. It did not mean, however, that we didn’t fly ultra-long duties: specially during Covid – a year when I flew over 400 hours while most of the pilots on Earth were grounded – we did some over 23 hour duties, what required three to four pilots. Different from my time in the 737 – when a three men crew meant that I was the pilot flying doing circling approaches to the right at 2am in Cordoba, something very fun indeed – now I was often a relief pilot, covering both the Commander in the left seat, and the other FO in the right, but without landing myself. After four and a half years, the average came out. While during the three years in the Boeing 737 granted me a ratio of 1/3.5 (one landing for every three and a half hours of flight), in the “Heavy Plastic”, despite our limited network, the ratio grew to 1/17 (one landing for every seventeen hours of flight). It might look like a lot, but it was actually quite ok. We are talking about one landing per week, maybe two. Exactly what I was looking for when it comes to quality of life.

Little did I know that in August 2022, I would get transferred to the mighty Boeing 777. In fact, I did not know that my last landing in Helsinki was my last in the 787, or that my last flight to Abidjan was my last flight either: out of the blue, hours before my recurrent simulator, me and my batch were sent to the triple. I am not exactly complaining: I would retire – and happily return – in the Dreamliner hands down, but in fact the Boeing 777 gave me another perspective. Not just the obvious one – the Dreamliner is two decades better – but because it was the backbone of the fleet, its network was truly global. There was nothing, or nowhere, the triple wouldn’t cover. But flying the pinnacle of the airline industry operation comes with a cost: very few landings. Even more if you’re are a Senior First Officer qualified for seating in the left seat over the Himalayas or crossing any Ocean on Earth. Take in consideration that most of our sectors were over twelve hours long and your chances of getting a landing dropped dramatically. In fact, after my final line check in the 777, I spent 45 days – without any vacation in the middle – before my next landing on a rainy night at Bali. So, after I logged 555 hours in the big foot (total flown, 707 hours, many not logged because of inflight rest) I thought we might could get some bias free numbers to compare to my previous fleets. That is it: 1/35. You read it correctly, one landing for every thirty five hours.

I felt it, because I like to fly, but seeing the number there is something else. Although is not a surprise for anyone that the airline flying is way more about management than it is about handling the controls – and there is a charm on it, I like the responsibility – finding out that those roughly one to two landings per month was all I would get, if any, is not exactly appealing. Proficiency wise is not a big deal, because the 777 is ridiculously easy to land – not only compared to the 737 or 787, but to anything really. Of course its immense mass asks for proper planning and respect, but in return it gives you a stability and robustness not many other types will.

Well, now I am back to the 737, but this time in North America. As soon as I gather some hundreds of hours, I will come back with the numbers of that again. I am sure we will have plenty to talk about!